Small Teaser has been awarded as ‘Startup of the Year’ during Tech Startup Day in Brussels. Best scale-up is the drone management platform UniFly. CitizenLab gets the award for Student Startup of the Year, while Birdee is the most Disruptive Startup. All four startups received congratulations from his royal highness King Philippe of Belgium, who attended the closing plenary and met top Belgian talents.

For the second year in a row Startups.be awarded four distinct startups during the Tech Startup Day conference in Brussels. A specialist jury made up of Omar Mohout (Sirris), Béatrice De Mahieu (Virtuology Academy), Simon Alexandre (The Faktory), Wim De Preter (De Tijd) and Frank Maene (Volta Ventures) compiled a shortlist of companies in four categories, and the Belgian startup community selected the winners. 2.335 people voted for their favorite companies over a three-week period.

This year, Tech Startup Day was crowned with a royal visit! King Philippe of Belgium attended the closing plenary, met young entrepreneurs, academics and investors and congratulated the winners of the Tech Startup Day Awards.

Small Teaser has been awarded as Startup of the Year in the Egg. Stijn Janssens received the award for the online platform that lets communities publish digital magazines of their own.

UniFlywas honored with the award for Scale-up of the Year. The company just raised five million euro for the internationalization of its technology to integrate drones safely in the airspace.

The battle for the Scale-up of the Year award was quite exciting, as Unifly won 26% of the votes, closely followed by Aproplan at 25%. In this category TheoPlayer, SilverFin and GuardSquare respectively ended up with 18%, 16% and another 15% of the votes.

Disruptive innovation

In a world that is constantly changing, it’s logical to give a lot of attention to the award for 'Disruptive Innovation of the Year'. In this category, it was ‘robot advisor’ Birdee from the city of Liège that won the first prize.

"We are very pleased with the winners that were chosen by the Belgian startup community," Frederik Tibau of Startups.be explains. "Small Teaser is one of the most impressive start-ups coming from Limburg, with a CEO that really makes a difference."

"UniFly amazes audiences worldwide with its drone platform, and robot consultant Birdee is disruptive indeed, because it facilitates digital investments without needing a bank. And finally, Citizenlab was already elected as one of the best startups in the world in the smart city domain, at the famous Smart City Expo in Barcelona.”

The prizes include two EYnovation packages worth 2,500 euros, four two year expert hosting packages courtesy of Combell, four mentoring sessions about doing business in the UK, a six month seat at Belcham in New York (Pulse Foundation), flex desks at Co.station, several coaching meetings with the jury members, a Data News Match IT-session and two tickets for GoGlobal missions organized by Startups.be.